Free Republic

For curators of a blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci exhibition which is opening today, it's been a nerve-racking few days. A total of 140 works by the greatest artist — who perhaps also possessed the greatest mind — in history were being brought together to commemorate the 500th anniversary of his death in 1519. Da Vinci was the ultimate Renaissance man. By the time of his death, aged 67, he had become an expert in countless areas: drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, palaeontology and cartography. And the centrepiece of the Louvre show in...

Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of a male figure perfectly inscribed in a circle and square, known as the "Vitruvian Man," illustrates what he believed to be a divine connection between the human form and the universe. Beloved for its beauty and symbolic power, it is one of the most famous images in the world. However, new research suggests that the work, which dates to 1490, may be a copy of an earlier drawing by Leonardo's friend. Another illustration of a divinely proportioned man — the subject is Christ-like, but the setting is strikingly similar to Leonardo's — has been discovered...